


Night Terrors

by Medie



Series: Two Men and a Little Alien [2]
Category: DCU, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: 25 Characters Meme, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's one thing to know that your newly-adopted daughter has, well, rather 'interesting' origins, it's quite another to find her thrashing about in her bed, screaming in a language you're certain is not of this world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terrors

The nightmares are the worst. It's one thing to know that your newly-adopted daughter has, well, rather 'interesting' origins, it's quite another to find her thrashing about in her bed, screaming in a language you're certain is not of this world. 

Finch learns the first time, through the rather painful experience of being slammed into a wall at a rather impressive speed, not to touch Kara before she wakes. He calls her name, quiet and gentle, approaching the bed with hands out. 

They've taken to leaving the light on in Kara's room, just a small one, in hopes of making it easier when she wakes. He's not certain it does, of course, but he is not a man experienced with fatherhood and even less experienced with child trauma and, as such, he is willing to try just about anything.

" _Kara_."

She snaps awake, mid-shriek, a word dying on her lips. He repeats her name, kneeling at the bed beside her, but doesn't lay a hand on her until she blinks and focuses in on him. "Daddy?"

The word is more alien to his ears than any of the unfamiliar language she's spoken in her nightmares and, yet, he smiles hearing it. "...yes," he says. Her hair is matted to her head from sweat and he winces at the job brushing that out will present. "Another nightmare?"

She nods, rubs at her eye. "Everybody died." 

Finch is not a man given to dramatic imaginings, but the scenarios that Kara's brief descriptions have led him to paint for him are horrific, but then someone put a baby aboard a ship and launched it into space. One does not take actions like that for anything short of a cataclysm.

He eases up, sitting on the edge of the bed. Kara doesn't need anymore invitation than that, she launches herself into his arms and cuddles as close as she can. It's not a situation he's comfortable with, but as usual she makes herself at home and he goes along with it. Kara is an easy child to raise that way, nightmares and such aside, she fills in the blanks his inexperience creates.

She sniffles. "I'm sorry."

He chuckles, rubbing her back. "For?"

"You're _working_ ," she says, slightly scandalized that he's missing the obvious. 

"Kara, work does not supersede you." He sits her back on his lap a little. She's growing fast. It won't be so long before she's too big to lift and move like this, even as reed-thin as she is at this stage, and he finds himself mourning that. She's only been in his life a few short years and he can't imagine not having her here. "There's no project in my life that will ever come before you."

He learned that from Nathan, the very first day in fact, and each and every time Kara wakes from a nightmare like this, he remembers why. 

"Besides," he says, knowing from experience that a nightmare like this means it will be near dawn before he can coax her back to bed. Kara sleeps very little as a matter of course, part of her biology he suspects, and occupying her will go farther in the long run than putting her back to bed. "I was working on your ship." 

The location of the ship tends to change infrequently. He can't take the risk of leaving it in one place for too long, but the computers themselves he's been picking at for a while. Sophisticated stuff, centuries beyond him, but Kara does have an innate understanding of the systems. Not enough to get them access into the ship's systems yet, but in time, Finch has hopes.

He looks at his daughter and the smile slowly replacing the fear in her eyes. All the hopes in the world. 

"I take it to mean that smile means yes?"

She nods and hugs him. Finch lifts her into his arms, carrying her from the room. He supposes that attempting to crack an alien spacecraft's computer system isn't the sort of project the average father and daughter would chose to fill their time, but then average is not the term he would choose to describe his daughter.

No matter what her origins.


End file.
